House Speaker Joe Ares­i­mow­icz, D-Ber­lin, has the back­ing of his cau­cus for a sec­ond and fi­nal term as speaker in Jan­uary — if he can sur­vive a re­count. Un­of­fi­cial re­sults have him win­ning his seat by only 37 votes.

Bar­ring a fail­ure by Ares­i­mow­icz to win re-elec­tion, it ap­pears the Gen­eral As­sem­bly will open its 2019 ses­sion in Jan­uary with the same lead­ers of all four leg­isla­tive cau­cuses.

Win­field had been mak­ing calls ex­plor­ing a chal­lenge to Duff, but did not seek a vote.

“We have a nice su­per­ma­jor­ity. Let’s start it off well,” Win­field said.

Looney said he was “hon­ored and hum­bled” by his cau­cus’s sup­port.

“We have a cau­cus that is fully rep­re­sen­ta­tive of Con­necti­cut. The Se­nate Demo­cratic cau­cus not only boasts racial, gen­der, and geo­graphic di­ver­sity, but is also di­verse in prac­ti­cal ex­pe­ri­ence, with in­no­va­tive busi­ness lead­ers join­ing a cau­cus that has con­sis­tently cham­pi­oned pro­gres­sive leg­is­la­tion. I look for­ward to con­tin­u­ing to work on a bi­par­ti­san ba­sis with my friend, Se­nate Repub­li­can Leader Len Fasano.”

Fasano, R-North Haven, will be­come Se­nate mi­nor­ity leader, as Democrats made a net gain of at least five seats Tues­day, turn­ing an 18-18 tie in that cham­ber into at least a 23-13 ad­van­tage. De­pend­ing on an ex­pected re­count, Democrats could end up with 24 seats.

Sen. Ge­orge Lo­gan, RAn­so­nia, ap­peared to lose in re­sults tab­u­lated Wed­nes­day, giv­ing Democrats 24 seats. But amended re­sults Thurs­day now show him win­ning, 18,513 to 18,448 — a plu­ral­ity of 65 votes. A Demo­cratic spokesman said Jorge Cabr­era, his chal­lenger, has re­tained an elec­tions lawyer.